Gary Bess

Dr. Gary Bess holds a doctorate in social work from the University of Southern California (USC). He has taught in graduate schools of social work at the University of California, Los Angeles, USC, and California State University (CSU) in Long Beach and Chico.

Gary provides training and technical assistance services in evaluation knowledge and skill sets for Native American tribes and agencies that have received grants from Indian Health Service, Administration for Native Americans, and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. He has co-authored two articles for the Journal of the National Center for American Indian, Alaska Native Mental Health Research on the life cycle of the evaluation process and on process evaluation among Native American communities.

As a Sister Sky Inc. team member, Gary serves as Lead Language Evaluator for the Administration for Native American’s Native Language Community Coordination (NLCC) recipients. His broad range of expertise in evaluation is shared with the NLCC recipients so they can learn to increase their own capacity in evaluating data elements of their language revitalization projects. Gary also serves as Sister Sky Inc.’s  Lead Evaluator for the Indian Health Service’s Behavioral Health Integration Initiative (BH2I).  Gary  works with the grantees to implement and evaluate their progress in providing integrated care services to their Native American communities. With a focus on quality customer service for all Sister Sky Inc. federal clients,  Gary enthusiastically  assist  grantees as they work on evaluation plans which  include local, cohort-wide, and national outcomes.  Gary is passionate about his work, it is apparent by the dedicated effort he provides to all Sister Sky Inc. clients.